Sinai and Palestine campaign

The Sinai and Palestine campaign was a campaign fought on the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I from 28 January 1915 to 30 October 1918. The British and their Commonwealth allies repulsed Ottoman Turkish invasions of Egypt via the Sinai Peninsula before advancing in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon in 1917 as part of a major offensive against the Central Powers in the east. Between October and December 1917, British and Commonwealth forces - assisted by Arab irregulars - mounted a successful campaign against Turkish forces in Palestine, and the Turks were forced to abandon the holy city of Jerusalem to British occupation. In 1918, the Allied forces drove on Anatolia, capturing Beirut and Damascus just before Turkey's surrender in October 1918.

Background
Germany's ally Ottoman Turkey was fighting Russia in the Caucasus and the British in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine by 1917. In 1917, the pressure on Turkey on the Caucasus front was relieved by the revolutionary upheavals in Russia. In Mesopotamia, Britain recovered from its defeat at the Siege of Kut and took Baghdad in March, continuing to press northward through the rest of the year. In Palestine, the Turks were threatened by the Arab Revolt and by a British expeditionary force advancing across the Sinai from Egypt.

Campaign
In March 1917, the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by General Archibald Murray, had advanced across the Sinai Desert and was poised to break into Palestine. Its route lay through a line from Gaza on the coast to Beersheba, 30 miles inland, lightly held by Turkish troops and their German advisers. However, the British were finding it difficult to cope with the desert terrain. Water shortages meant that offensives had to be swiftly concluded before portable supplies ran out. On 26 March, British troops succeeded in penetrating Gaza in a surprise assault but were then withdrawn because of fear of a Turkish counterattack. A second British attack on Gaza on 17 April faced much stronger resistance and was repelled. Murray was relieved of command and replaced by General Edmund Allenby.

The new commander was given substantial reinforcements so he could satisfy British Prime Minister David Lloyd George's demand to take Jerusalem by Christmas. The expanded forces were reorganized and Arab forces, led by Emir Faisal and Colonel T.E. Lawrence, were supplied with money and equipment. The opposing side was also preparing for a fight, but the Germans and Turks had problems at command level. General Erich von Falkenhayn, former German Chief of the General Staff, had been sent to Turkey to head the German-Turkish Yildirim Army, originally intended to intervene in Mesopotamia. The British buildup opposite the Gaza-Beersheba line led Falkenhayn to take his troops to Palestine instead, where he assumed overall command of German and Turkish forces. Yet his arrogance offended the Turks, and General Mustafa Kemal, commanded of the Turkish Seventh Army at Gaza, left on sick leave rather than served under him.

Meanwhile, Allenby planned his offensive with care. He devised an intelligent deception operation to make the enemy believe he intended to renew the attack on Gaza, while actually sneding teh bulk of his forces to attack Beersheba at the other end of the Turkish line. While Gaza was subjected to a six-day artillery bombardment, British troops moved to new positions 25 miles distant. A contingent of the Royal Flying Corps flew combat patrols to block the Germans from carrying out aerial reconnaissance over British lines.

The British advance
The offensive was launched on the morning of 31 October. While infantry struggled forward, cutting a path through barbed wire, Australian and New Zealand cavalry executed a daring flanking movement to approach the Turkish defenses from the north and east. The speed and unexpectedness of the cavalry charge by the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade carried them through Turkish trench lines and into Beersheba by nightfall. The whole Turkish line quickly became indefensible. By 6 November, Gaza was also in British hands.

With Faisal and Lawrence's Arab forces operating in the desert on his right flank, Allenby pressed forward determinedly. The Turkish Seventh and Eighth Armies retreated in front of him to a new defensive line southwest of Jerusalem. These formations arrived much depleted by troops deserting or surrendering to the British.

Capturing Jerusalem
From 10 November, fighting resumed in earnest. After a British cavalry charge helped infantry capture fortified villages at El Mughar Ridge, Junction Station was taken, cutting Turkish rail links with Jerusalem. The Turkish Eighth Army withdrew northward, leaving the Seventh Army to defend the holy city. The advance of British troops was then slowed by the onset of winter rains. Falkenhayn's Yildirim Army came into action in late November, delivering a dangerous counterattack against a position lightly held by British cavalry. It soon proved, however, to be no more than a delaying action.

On the night of 6 December, a British surprise attack in heavy rain broke through the Turkish defenses on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Commanders on both sides accepted that there would be no fighting in the city itself, and Turkish troops were allowed to withdraw to the north. The British took possession of Jerusalem on 11 December, fulfilling Lloyd George's wish for the city to be in British hands by Christmas. The capture of Jerusalem was a boost to British morale and a severe blow to Turkish prestige. Militarily, however, it was the start of a long pause in British offensive operations, which would not resume until September 1918.

March on Anatolia
The collapse of Bulgaria on 30 September 1918 left the Allies free to attack Austria-Hungary to the north or the Turkish capital of Constantinople to the east. Meanwhile, British progress in Palestine had been halted by the transfer of troops to the Western Front. Although British General Edmund Allenby had occupied Jerusalem in December 1917, Turkish troops, with German support and under German command, held positions north of the city. While waiting for reinforcements from India, Allenby planned an attack on the coastal plain of western Palestine followed by an advance north through Syria into the Anatolian heartland of Turkey.

On 19 September, he launched his meticulously planned offensive at the Battle of Megiddo. His forces were impressive, with 35,000 infantry supported by the cavalry of the Desert Mounted Corps, 500 artillery pieces, and more than 100 aircraft. The Turkish trenches were overrun by noon on the first day and cavalry broke through, forcing the Turks and Germans to retreat. Over the following days, the fleeing troops were attacked by air and outflanked by pursuing cavalry and armored cars. Meanwhile, Arab irregulars led by Emir Faisal and Colonel T.E. Lawrence captured Dera on the eastern side of the River Jordan. At the end of September, Australian horsemen entered Damascus, where they were joined by Faisal's Arabs the following day.

General Mustafa Kemal, commanding the Turkish Seventh Army, strove to establish a defensive line to protect Anatolia, but the situation was hopeless. To the east, in northern Mesopotamia, a British Indian army was occupying the oil fields of Mosul. To the west, only a thin line of Turkish troops stood between the Allied army in Macedonia and Constantinople. The Young Turks who had led the country into war fell from power and on 14 October a "peace government" was formed under General Ahmed Izzet. An armistice was negotiated on board the British warship HMS Agamemnon, off the Greek island of Lemnos, and signed on 30 October.

Aftermath
The defeat of Bulgaria and Turkey sealed the fate of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Bulgaria and Turkey were punished for their support of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Bulgaria ceded western Thrace to Greece and lost territory to the future Yugoslavia. The Turkish Ottoman Empire was dismembered by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. A nationalist revolt established a Turkish Republic in 1922, which successfully revoked some of the treaty's terms.